The Trouble With Tony (4 page)

“Hardy har har,” Jack smirked. “You know, you should be a comedian.”

“What, and quit my day job?” Trudy gave him a friendly wink.

Trudy was forty-one and in good shape. She had super straight brown hair cut bluntly against her shoulders with only a bit of wispy bangs to soften her strong face. She wore very little makeup and, usually, a smile. She was a complete one-eighty from the types of supervisors Jack had in the military, softer in temperament and rather disorganized, but they got along fine. Or so Jack thought, anyway.

He fiddled with his turkey and mustard on rye and looked his boss in the eye. “You wanted to catch up on cases over lunch?” That didn’t make a lot of sense to Jack. That was what staff meetings were for.

“No, just chat. How are you?” Trudy’s tone turned blunt. “You don’t seem very happy.”

Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Has someone complained?”

“No,” Trudy said firmly, shaking her head. “I don’t mean that at all. But I have eyes. You look tired. Are you still having nightmares?”

“I don’t know, I tend to sleep through them,” Jack quipped with a tight smile.

She blinked at him and was silent for a moment. “You know you can talk to me, Jack, either as a friend or as a counselor. Consider it a job perk.”

Jack took a bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly. He pretended to think about it. “Been there, done that. The Army assigned me a therapist. I know the tools. I just need time.”

She nodded. “Distractions help. How’s your social life?”

The truth would worry her, so Jack just shrugged.

“I thought as much. I don’t get it, Jack. You grew up in Seattle, didn’t you? Don’t you have friends in the area? Family?”

“My parents retired and moved away from the Land of Perpetual Rain while I was in Iraq. They live in San Diego now. And yeah, I do know people in the area, but people my age have a life, kids. If they’re doctors like me, they’re up to their ears in work.”

“And you know this because you actually make an effort to get together with them?” Trudy raised her eyebrows in an almost comical demonstration of the word “skeptical.”

Jack wanted to growl in irritation, but this woman paid his salary. “I’ve made some effort,” he said neutrally.

In point of fact, most of the time he didn’t answer the phone when he saw the caller was an old friend. He’d attended one backyard BBQ with a bunch of stuck-up med-pros shortly after getting out of the VA hospital. They’d asked him pointed questions about the war and talked about oil motives and global elitism—and that was enough to tell Jack he didn’t belong in that crowd anymore. Those people would never understand the youth that had bled out under his fingers, and why he’d wanted to be there for them. Politics had nothing to do with it.

Trudy sucked on a bottle of vitamin water and eyed him critically. “What about sex?”

“What, are you fishing for Loretta now?”

Trudy smiled. “No. Loretta fishes plenty well enough on her own.”

Jack hesitated. Then, what the hell, he made a big fat “zero” with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s not a cock ring, by the way. It’s a big naught.”

“And not a naughty naught, I take it.” Trudy laughed.

“That would be correct.”

She glowered at him sternly. “Jack… you’re a healthy, thirty-six year old man….”

“Healthy? Debatable.”

“…and attractive.”

“Also debatable.”

Trudy sighed. “No, not debatable. You’re an attractive man. Sam tells me you were the life of the party back in the day.”

Jack knew she meant to be encouraging, but the reminder just fucking hurt. He spoke in a tight voice. “My right arm is badly scarred from wrist to shoulder. I have intermittent tremors and flailing nightmares. I’m not exactly a gay man’s wet dream, not anymore.”

Trudy scrutinized him for a long moment. “Tell me something, Jack. If one of your patients said that to you, what you said just now, what would you tell them?”

Jack hesitated, pursing his lips stubbornly.

“Come on, Jack. What would you tell them?”

“Take all the time you need to readjust?” Jack said with a straight face.

Trudy laughed. “You are such a liar. You’d tell them sex and intimacy are not about being physically perfect.”

“Yeah, but I think the kind of men who hang out at gay clubs missed that memo.”

“Who said anything about gay clubs? Have you considered online dating?”

Jack winced. “Look, Trudy, I appreciate your….”

“Meddling and interfering?”

“…wanting to help. And I get the message, I do. But… I’m fine.
Really
.” Jack said the last word harder than necessary and with a steady stare.

Trudy wasn’t intimidated. She leaned forward, her eyes soft. “Jack, I founded a sex clinic. I believe that having a healthy sex life is a key component in a life worth living. Meddling in other people’s love lives is not just my job, it’s my passion.” She said this with a tongue-in-cheek smirk, making a joke of it, but Jack knew every word was true. Trudy Kaplan was a good doctor, and she really believed in the miracle elixir she was selling. It wasn’t that Jack didn’t believe in it. It was just that he knew life wasn’t that simple.

“
When
I get a lover, you’ll be the first to know,” Jack promised. “I’ll even share a few salacious details.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Trudy said with waggling eyebrows.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Trudy grew serious and fiddled with her drink. “I just want you to know, Jack…. I know what we do here isn’t heart surgery, and it’s not a combat hospital. But you’re a damned good therapist. You make a real difference in people’s lives. I’m glad you’re here.”

Jack felt a painful twist of emotion in his chest. He knew where he was supposed to be, where he was needed, and it wasn’t here. This was his “put out to pasture” field of fluffy fucking dandelions. Some days that chaffed more than others.

“Thank you,” he managed to say. “It’s nice to hear that.”

~6~

I
T
WAS
after eight that night before Jack was able to get out of the clinic. His last appointment had been at five, but he had to catch up on case notes and then he’d done a bit of digging around in the textbooks that lined one wall of his office.

Tony DeMarco was an interesting case. Jack had no doubt that his problem was just as he’d described it. He’d been far too embarrassed for it to be anything but the truth.

The physical exam hadn’t shown any obvious issues. Except that one look at those muscular thighs with their soft, dark hair, and that large, thick, uncut cock, even completely flaccid, had stirred thoughts Jack rarely had for his patients.

It was true that it was exactly the sort of cock that a younger, more carefree, good-time Jack would have slid to his knees for with a moan of thanksgiving. But he wasn’t that man anymore, and he’d given enough exams in the Army to know how to distance himself. He stayed objective about his patients, even funny, bashful, gorgeous Italian ones.

But there had been a scent that had drifted up from DeMarco’s newly bared crotch—slightly sweaty, warm, with faint hints, honest to God, of garlic and a heavenly marinara. The memory of it made Jack twitch in his khakis.

Hell. Maybe Trudy was right, and he did need to make more of an effort to get out, meet some men. If he was having thoughts like this about a patient, he was obviously ready.

It was a shame that Jack hadn’t met Tony somewhere else. A bar, perhaps. Then again, with Tony’s issues, that most likely would have gone nowhere. Yet another stellar reason why a sex therapist should avoid getting any ideas about a patient. Road to Hell and all that. And that was on top of the sheer ethics of the thing.

Reassured that he had his head on straight, Jack decided to call it a night.

He was the last one out of the clinic, and he found the front door open. He frowned at it, annoyed. He’d have to speak to Loretta
again
. Of course, she’d known he was still in the office, but he preferred her to lock up when she left. The soldier in him didn’t like the door being open while he was there alone. It smacked of an unguarded back. And there were even a few times when she’d forgotten to lock it after everyone had left, and the clinic had been open all night.
Unacceptable
, Jack muttered as he headed for the parking lot.

The employee lot was behind the building and was surrounded by brick walls. It was getting late and it was dark out. Jack felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl as he walked toward his car.

He stopped a few feet from his vehicle and did a quick recon. It appeared undisturbed. He moved to the side of it quickly and, using it as partial cover, scanned the area, looking for anything off.

There.
A shadow, by the exit to the street. The blob formed into the shadow of a man as it crossed the path of a streetlight. Jack gave chase. But by the time he’d reached Pike Street, there were too many people around, and he didn’t see anyone running, no one suspicious.

It was just a kid having a joint or a vagrant you scared off. It was nothing.

But Jack Halloran trusted his gut, and he didn’t believe it. Someone had been watching him.

~7~

O
N
F
RIDAY
night, Tony sat in his car outside Stanley’s in Union City, watching the door. All week he’d followed Brent White, Marilyn’s husband, trying to get a feel for the guy. And he’d gotten a feeling all right. Brent White was an arrogant, ill-tempered SOB.

Brent worked at a Seattle law firm as a corporate lawyer. He was not well-liked there, if the receptionist Tony had schmoozed over coffee knew her corporate gossip. With her cleavage, Tony was betting that she did. After work, Brent had gone to a tai chi class (purple belt, Tony had sussed from the studio’s owner). He wore his tai chi garb with a chip on his shoulder and a stick (nunchuck?) far up his tight ass.

After showering and changing at home, Brent went right out again. Now he was drinking at Stanley’s. He’d been inside for thirty minutes.

The door of Stanley’s opened and Brent came out. He had a woman clinging to his arm—short skirt, high heels, long blond hair, and low-cut blouse. She managed to tread a fine line between slutty and stuck-up. Tony lifted his camera, with its long lens, and snapped off a dozen frames as the two of them kissed in the street and then got into Brent’s car. She looked drunk.

Brent pulled out and Tony followed. He shadowed the BMW all the way to Brent and Marilyn’s home. Brent was discreet—he pulled his car into the garage. The neighbors would not see his blondie, even if they happened to be looking out their window. Tony parked at the end of the block and waited. He couldn’t see anything through the blinds, but he didn’t have to. Obviously, Brent hadn’t brought the lady home to play cribbage or bake banana bread. At least not with actual bananas.

Almost exactly an hour later, Brent’s car reemerged. Tony followed again as Brent dropped off his lady friend at the bar and then drove back home and stayed there.

Nice one, Brent,
Tony thought with a bitter taste in his mouth. Marilyn had been dead for only six weeks. Tony might have dredged up some sympathy, might have been willing to assume the hookup was the act of a desperate, grieving man, if it weren’t for the get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way expression that seemed to live on Brent’s face twenty-four-seven.

He was glad he found Brent suspicious. Mark had said Brent had an alibi, but alibis didn’t always stick. If Tony could pin this on Brent, that left the clinic and Dr. Halloran in the clear. And Tony very much wanted the good doctor in the clear.

At the mere thought of Jack Halloran, a sluggish, achingly sweet heat pooled in Tony’s groin, lifting his dick like it was attached to a construction crane. Goddamn it. He’d wanked so much in the past few days, he was giving himself flesh burns.
Knock it off!
he told his crotch.
I mean it!

His cell phone buzzed and Tony glanced at it. It was his mother. He almost didn’t answer, but he was pretty sure Brent was in for the night, and if anything could deflate his newly enamored dick, it was talking to his mother. Small blessings. He answered the phone. “Hello, Ma? How are ya?”

“Tony! You actually picked up your phone for once. What are you, sitting in a dentist’s waiting room?”

Tony closed his eyes and sighed. Close enough. “No, Ma. I’m just chilling. Again: How are you?”

“Who, me? I’m invincible, you know that. Well, aside from the arthritis in my fingers that makes rolling dough a thing of the past. And my left knee. Remember your grandmother’s right elbow?”

Tony listened to the medical history of his ancestors, both sides, for ten minutes, grunting where appropriate. Funny how the two things that might actually have been relevant—being gay and having a picky dick—seemed to have happened to no one else in the long list of family casualties. He hated being special.

“What about you, Tony?” his mom asked. “You feeling good? No colds?”

“I’m good, Ma. Healthy as a horse. It was all that garlic you fed me in utero.”

His mother laughed. “You make fun, but it’s true. I swear! How are your BMs?”

“Ma,” Tony warned.

“Do you go daily? Because it should be daily.”

Tony hit his forehead into the steering wheel with an audible
thunk
. He was really, really glad he was alone in a parked car on a dark street, and that there was no reason for anyone to bug his car. “Ma, I really don’t want to talk with you about my bowel movements, okay? What am I, three years old?”

“You know what your Uncle Harvey always said, ‘What comes out shows the quality of what went in.’”

“Ma, Uncle Harvey had dementia. That’s what comes from obsessing about BMs.”

“Don’t be so full of yourself! I’m your mother, and I have a right to know these things.”

“My BMs are fine, okay? Peachy! Daily and… fine.”

“Not too hard?”

“Ma!”

“If they get too hard, you’re not eating enough fiber. Are you eating plenty of vegetables? And bread. But not that white crap—sourdough, like I make. You should find a good Italian bakery there.”